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SECRET SECRET... I’VE GOT A SECRET

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The Pezman
FAN EDITORIALIST

Tomm Hullet rebutted to an article regarding secret, sidequests, “easter eggs,” (or what have you) in video games, saying that if they are not necessary to beat the game or to get a perfect rating, they don’t need to be hinted at. On this I fundamentally disagree. To begin, I would like to separate those which Hullet grouped together as “secrets” into three categories: secrets that matter, secrets that don’t, and cheats.

I’ll start with the simplest first: cheats. Hullet refers to a pair of passwords for Kid Icarus that no one in their right mind would enter on their own. I’m not familiar with Kid Icarus (I’m too young), but I assume they gave him things like invincibility or level select. In any case, I know you can enter “Who’s your daddy?” in Warcraft III to halt any loss of health. In Sonic 2 you can play soundtracks in a certain order for things like debug mode, level select, and color changes. These are cheats. They are not secrets, meant to be discovered on your own. They are meant for those who have beaten the game once, wish to do so again, but don’t want to put all the work into it.

The second type I will address are those secrets which do not matter. These, I believe, do not need to be hinted at or suggested in any way. I’m sure now you’re asking: How do you determine whether a secret matters? The answer is that such secrets do not affect plot or gameplay (in a few instances, the line between secrets that matter and don’t matter gets blurred, but I’ll address those on a case-by-case basis). Hullet cites some secrets which I would deem to not matter, mostly from the Metal Gear series: you can see Meryl in various states of nudity in the bathroom, you can shoot Mario and Yoshi for health, you can change what Psycho Mantis says by what’s on your memory card and how you’ve played the game, there’s a secret 1-up in Mario 1-1, and you can find various Moblins who will give you rupees in pretty much every Zelda title. Note that none of these really change anything about your character (except for health or a 1-up or something, not anything that you couldn’t get elsewhere) or the storyline. Final Fantasy X and VII each sport a contest of sorts between the ladies for the main character’s affection. In the case of VII, this results in a hilarious date sequence with your suitress (or suitor, in one case, though I've yet to see it) of choice. In X, it changes a minimal amount of cutscenes, none of which are important in the first place anyway. This does not need to be hinted at, explained, or otherwise communicated. Because it doesn’t affect plot (Aeris will die whether she dates you or not), or gameplay (Tidus’ stats don’t increase if he manages to secure Rikku’s feelings in place of Yuna’s), the developers can leave these little things nestled in the games, secure that if the gamers miss them, they’re not missing much.

We now come to the third type of secret: Secrets that matter. You can probably guess what I mean by “matters” based on the above paragraph, but I’ll explain anyway: Secrets that matter affect gameplay (if you get a new move, weapon, character, magic, or fight a secret boss, and so on) or plot (if you find some secret history behind someone, or run into the wizened historian who clues you in to the true meaning of that chant). These are also knows as “sidequests,” and the gamer should be able to catch wind of their existence within the game itself. As I mentioned in my previous article, sidequests and secrets are really the meat that goes on the bones of an RPG, and without them, an RPG would be as linear as a Super Mario World switch palace (which is pretty damn one-dimensional, if you haven’t played SMW [shame on you!]). Chrono Trigger does an excellent job of alerting us to the presence of sidequests (many of which are copious in both plot and equipment), which is done by talking to the characters in the End of Time. They show you where to head in what time period. Legend of Dragoon mentions, when going to the Tower of Flanvel for the first time, that “you should come back later.” And indeed you should, for the powerful optional boss resides there. When leaving the floating continent in Final Fantasy VI, you are told that you should wait for Shadow, but are given the option to jump anyway. If you wait, like the game suggests, he does come, and you can then retrieve him later on. Unfortunately, the vast majority of situations are not like this, and give no hints whatsoever that something needs to be done in order to obtain a special weapon, item, or cutscene. But I think my previous article does enough ranting to cover this one.